Arcade Fire

The Taxman Cometh

Pearl Bar runs up a hefty tab with the comptroller's office as once-hot Washington Avenue sings the blues.

The Rocks Off 100: Dwight Taylor Lee, the Wandering Bufalero

Welcome to the Rocks Off 100, our portrait gallery of the most compelling profiles and personalities in the far-flung Houston music community -- a lot more than just musicians, but of course they're in there too. Who Are You? "I'm Dwight Taylor Lee, singer/songwriter/producer," Lee introduces himse ... More >>

5 Albums I'd Like to Read

I suppose it was inevitable that Rush wrote a book. To move from long-form albums with intricate plot-lines and involved character development to a multi-hundred-page novel with the same isn't really much of a leap, after all, and prog has always been at least a bit about bombast. What could be more ... More >>

10 More Things I'll Be Doing at ACL Festival This Weekend

That's right folks, it's ACL Music Festival time again in Texas, and Rocks Off will be flying to Austin on the private Rocks Off jet this weekend to cover the fest from Friday until the last notes of "Give It Away" at the end of the Red Hot Chili Peppers set on Sunday night. That's my way of telli ... More >>

Web Extra: The Rebirth of Underground Rock

I remember the first big boom in underground rock, because I was definitely not part of it. Instead, I was one of those kids for whom Nirvana's Nevermind (and their January 1992 Saturday Night Live appearance, in my case) kicked open the door to a much cooler musical world than the one I had been li ... More >>

Quiet Company

Why Shouldn't the Zombie Apocalypse Have a Playlist?

Yeah, yeah, we all know it's 2012. Apparently the end of the world is near. The apocalypse is coming. Or better yet, a zombie apocalypse is coming. If you aren't so in touch as to what the hell a zombie even is, it's the living dead, and they are scary as can be. I have my roommate and good friend ... More >>

The Rest of the Best: Houston's Top 5 Restaurant Playlists

The only times I notice the music in a restaurant is when it's really bad (Christmas music playing year round at Sichuan Cuisine), really out of place (Nine Inch Nails blaring out of the speakers at now-closed Tony Vallone joint Ciao Bello or Cannibal Corpse washing over the line of patrons at Amy's ... More >>

Explosions in the Sky

National Punch A Hipster Day: Are You A Music Hipster?

Today, June 1, has been declared National Punch a Hipster Day. First off, who the hell comes up with these random-ass holidays? As someone who gets called a hipster at times, I don't think I am. Maybe I'm a music hipster, in a sense. Most would say repeating this quote -- "I was listening to [bla ... More >>

SXSW: Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band Rock ACL Live

Bruce Springsteen's Thursday started with a keynote speech in one of the big ballrooms at the Austin Convention Center, and ended with a mythic three-hour set at ACL Live across town, in front of a few thousand people cooing "Bruce". The keynote and the show went hand in hand. If you weren't there ... More >>

This Week in Deliciousness

Welcome back to the weekly roundup here at Eating Our Words, where your Pizza Boomerangs are no match for our Nacho Javelins. The roundup was slightly less weekly last week, because - and this is true - I spent the morning in the emergency room having tests done and several dozens of vials of blood ... More >>

Arcade Fire, Civil Wars, Taylor Swift to Pen Hunger Games Songs

You may or may not remember a week ago when we told you about how the head of the largest musicians' union in North America ripped into Lionsgate for farming out the score for the upcoming film Hunger Games to Europe despite the film's Appalachian setting and decidedly American style of music. Well ... More >>

Five ACL Acts We're Totally Not Making Up

Aloha, Susan... Stevie Wonder Coldplay Arcade Fire Kanye Kanye Kanye blah blah blah yada yada yada. Rocks Off could write about this year's ACL headliners until we're blue in the face - and we probably will this weekend - but what's the point? The real fun of the festival is on the back roads of ... More >>

Extreme Heat Unlikely To Affect Future Concert Seasons

Marc BrubakerArcade Fire in the glorious days of May, when temperatures only reached the low 90s.​Is the heat getting to you yet? Rocks Off is not going to say this week or two of consecutive 100-plus-degree days is affecting our judgment, but earlier today we approved one of our writers' pitc ... More >>

Canada Day: Top 10 Artists From Way Up Yonder

​Hello? Is this thing on? Rocks Off has a feeling that a lot of folks are nowhere near their computers today. Must be some sort of holiday. It is, actually. Today, not Monday. It's Canada Day, or as it's known in the U.S., "What Is Princess Kate Wearing?" Day. (Also, Friday.) Honestly, Rocks ... More >>

The Best Fourth Songs On History's Greatest Albums

Sorry, Manowar, maybe next year...​As we come up on the July 4th weekend, Rocks Off considered a myriad of blog ideas to commemorate the holiday. Most patriotic songs, album covers, artists? Sorry, Lee Greenwood, Richard Pryor, and Ted Nugent, but it's all been covered. On this weekend of inde ... More >>

Last Night: Peter Gabriel At Cynthia Woods Mitchell Pavilion

Photos by Jay Lee​Peter Gabriel Cynthia Woods Mitchell Pavilion June 16, 2011 Rock writers right now - hell, everyone with a musical soul - are living in the most interesting of times. No, it's not because we can pull any album we want down out of the sky at any time of day. It's because we g ... More >>

Peter Gabriel & the New Blood Orchestra

Arcade Fire On For ACL; Kanye Expected In Midnight Lineup

​Tonight at midnight, the folks at C3 Presents who book the Austin City Limits Music Festival are expected to drop the lineup in full onto the festival's official Web site. And like, duh, Rocks Off will of course be up and about to post it to the blog once it goes live. You are more than welco ... More >>

Last Night: Jimmy Buffett At Cynthia Woods Mitchell Pavilion

Photos by Jay Lee​Jimmy Buffett & the Coral Reefer Band Cynthia Woods Mitchell Pavilion May 5, 2011 See more changes in latitudes, changes in attitudes in our slideshow. Blowing through the jasmine of our mind, Aftermath once got it in our head somehow that Jimmy Buffett wrote "Margaritavill ... More >>

More Local Music News Than Fighting Navy SEALs

It's not every week that Arcade Fire returns to the suburbs whose ennui inspired a Grammy-winning album, but it is every week that we bring a brimming local music roundup for all of our Rocks Off readers. Without further ado, we present the latest installment of Magnolia City Mixtape. ​Hot of ... More >>

More Local Music News Than Half-Price Deals At Cactus

Another week, another teeming cup runneth over, full of local music news. Here's our latest installment of Magnolia City Mixtape. ​This week's soundtrack comes from Roosh Williams, whose Common Struggles of a Modern Man album just dropped. Roosh also has a video for the track "No Hard Feeling ... More >>

Rocks Off Giving Away Pair Of Arcade Fire Tickets

Gabriel Jones/Merge Records​Rocks Off recently reached a pretty cool milestone, and we're about to hit another. So we'd like to say thanks. Last week we got our 3,000th Twitter follower on @hprocksoff, and we are a handful of folks away from our 2,000th Facebook "liker." What are you waiting ... More >>

Out Today: Glee Warbles, Gorillaz Fall, Kinks Ride Again

​It's been a week since the Foo Fighters' album, Wasting Light, hit the stores, and Rocks Off has probably averaged at least one or two spins of the solid disc per day. Right now, we are actually on track four. Will anything top Light this week? That remains to be seen. Next week will bring ... More >>

Graphic: When Festival Booking Goes Too Far

Garland RobinetteYes, this is the real Jazz Fest 2011 poster, and that's really Jimmy Buffett.​Every spring, New Orleans puts on something called the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival. But as Jazz Fest has grown more and more popular, the headlining acts have had less and less to do with ja ... More >>

Music's Biggest Disappointments Of 2010

​Editor's Pick: I'm tempted to say myself on this one. I just didn't connect to a lot of music this year. Especially new music, most of which I was either indifferent to or outright loathed. I'm not really the navel-gazing type, though, so I'll just chalk it up to an off year and move on. I do ... More >>

Frickin' Lasers: Six Artists Who Could Really Use Them

Photo illustration by Monica FuentesNow that's more like it.​If you don't have tickets for tonight's Ghostland Observatory show at Warehouse Live, you are shit out of luck. Sorry to say, but the show is sold out, and when things sell out at that venue, they mean it. Seriously, you may have to ... More >>

Rodeo 2011: Sugarland, Zac Brown Band, Selena Gomez...

​The Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo announced the first four entertainers for its 2011 season, scheduled for March 1-20, 2011 in Reliant Stadium: Sugarland (March 3); Selena Gomez (March 6); Zac Brown Band (March 17); and Brad Paisley (March 19) You were expecting Arcade Fire, perhaps? Onc ... More >>

This Week in Deliciousness

So THAT'S what they did with all the oil-coated octopi they fished out of the Gulf.​Welcome back to the weekly roundup here at Eating Our Words, where THE SPICE MUST FLOW. We started the week off by getting some terrible tapas in the Arcade Fire's least-favorite Houston suburb, the Woodlands. ... More >>

This Week in Deliciousness

Ceviche is always best when served on a salt puck.​Welcome back to the weekly roundup here at Eating Our Words, where there can never be enough varieties of the Newton. We're working on a Boston Cream Pie Newton that should be ready before the end of the year, assuming we can get our taste tes ... More >>

Seven Modern Bands We'd Like To See At The Symphony

​This evening at Jones Hall, the Houston Symphony will be playing the music of Queen. Pretty fitting, considering the grand, orchestra-friendly nature of many Queen songs. However, there are a slew of other bands whose oeuvres Rocks Off would like to see interpreted by a symphony, and they're ... More >>

Jimi Hendrix's Pyromania And 5 Other Great Moments In Instrument Destruction

​ We've all seen the famous footage of Jimi Hendrix humping, burning, and finally smashing his guitar to bits at the Monterey Pop Festival in 1967. What not many people realize is he initially performed this act of musical instrument immolation some months before, at the suggestion of writer Keith ... More >>

Previewing the Year Ahead In Local Releases

​ 2010 looks like it's going to be a banner year for music in general. We can look forward to a new Arcade Fire opus, another Spoon outing, Ted Leo and the Pharmacists, Black Rebel Motorcycle Club and a Beach House record that is already getting Animal Collective-like buzz. Rocks Off is chomping a ... More >>

Tonight: Elvis Perkins in Dearland at Walter's on Washington

All too often, the "folk singer/songwriter" label is a warning shot, promising pseudo protest music, self-indulgent hippie strumming, mid-tempo banality, coffee shops in Boulder, sometimes all four at once. Elvis Perkins is not that kind of singer/songwriter. For Perkins, the label is merely a desc ... More >>

Aftermath: DeVotchKa at Warehouse Live

Photos by Mark C. AustinIt's always nice to see a band that respects its elders, and Denver's DeVotchKa has taken Van Morrison's "Into the Mystic" promise "I wanna rock your gypsy soul" to heart. Finding the seam between Old World traveler tunes and contemporary indie-rock, the quartet (and a ... More >>

Tonight: Gentleman Auction House at Rudyard's

Lauren Winchester Within about 20 seconds of "A Banner Year," the opener of Gentleman Auction House's new Christmas In Love EP, the St. Louis indie-pop hydra has managed to recall Belle & Sebastian, Arcade Fire and another dozen or so boy-girl bands that are equally earnest and invigorating. I ... More >>

XM Nation: Catching Up and Moving On

Wolf Parade: At Mount Zoomer

Last Night: Negativland at Rice University

Drenched in Blog: Haddaway Go Away

Drenched in Blog: Top Ten Albums of 2007

Prodigal Players

Interpol

Our Love to Admire

Confessions of a Classic Rock Whore, or One Man’s Journey

Bayou City Music Mindbender, Part II

Another chance to test your knowledge of local lore